François Rochon

The short version

François Rochon founded Giverny Capital in 1993 and has run the Rochon Global Portfolio ever since. Since inception, the portfolio has compounded at roughly 14.7% annualized versus about 9.3–9.9% for its benchmark — five points of alpha a year, sustained through the 2000–02 and 2008 crashes, disclosed every year in unusually candid annual letters that break down every winning and losing position. We rate him 8.3 / 10 — Trusted.

Why the high rating

• Over 30 years of public, itemized results. Few managers publish annual letters as detailed and as honest about mistakes as Rochon’s — readers can check the reasoning behind individual positions, not just the headline return.
• A stated, numbers-first checklist, applied consistently: return on equity above roughly 15%, EPS growth above roughly 10%, debt under about 4x profit, a durable market position, and a five-year forward valuation model with a built-in margin of safety.
• Skin in the game and long holding periods. Rochon favors management teams with meaningful personal ownership, and his own average holding period runs around seven years — a genuine long-term record, not short-term outperformance.

Fair cautions

• Concentrated portfolio. Giverny typically holds 15–20 stocks, which means higher volatility and real periods of sharp underperformance — notably in 2008 and 2022 — compared with a diversified index fund.
• Smaller and less independently audited than mega-cap peers. Performance figures come primarily from Rochon’s own letters rather than a third-party fund administrator’s public reporting, though SEC 13F filings corroborate his firm’s holdings.

Bottom line

A three-decade, benchmark-beating record built on a genuinely explainable checklist and unusually candid letters — with the volatility that comes from real concentration, not index-like diversification.

Invest like Rochon: AI prompt

His five-part checklist is stated explicitly and consistently across three decades of letters, which makes it straightforward to turn into an evaluation framework. Paste this into any AI assistant, with a company or ticker in mind:

Act as a disciplined value investor following François Rochon's documented Giverny
Capital framework. I will give you a company. Evaluate it strictly using these
criteria, in order, and tell me where it fails first if it fails:

1. Financial strength screen — is return on equity above roughly 15%, has EPS grown
   at roughly 10%+ annually over a multi-year period, and is debt under roughly 4x
   annual profit? Show the actual numbers.
2. Durable market position — does this business hold a genuine leadership position
   in its niche that competitors would struggle to displace? Name the specific
   source of that position.
3. Management quality and alignment — is management skilled, passionate about the
   business, and meaningfully invested alongside outside shareholders (real insider
   ownership, not token grants)?
4. Five-year intrinsic value estimate — using conservative growth and margin
   assumptions, project the business's value five years out, and compare it to
   roughly double the current price. Is there a real margin of safety at today's
   price against that five-year estimate?
5. Concentration fit — would this be a top-20 conviction holding, or is it a
   marginal, diversification-only position? Rochon's approach only works if you're
   willing to size positions meaningfully.

Give me a verdict: PASS (buy-worthy at the right price), WATCH (good business, wrong
price), or FAIL (skip — name which criterion it fails), and the single biggest risk
to the thesis over a 5-year holding period. Flag this as a research framework, not
financial advice, and do not guarantee any outcome.

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